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February 16, 2012

A Fluffy JDAM

Since this is obviously a habit of mine, I have returned once again from neglect.  Given that I post to coincide with my mood and my mood is oft unpredictable, and  apparently neglectful, I'll nonetheless apologize for my time away. 
That out of the way, I had finished my brothers promised bomb sometimes the week before Christmas.  In true Chango form, I have decided to post about it two months after the fact, yay.
A rundown of what I’m actually talking about…
  • What:  JDAM (military) Bomb my brother requested
  • Yarn:  2 Lion Brand Jiffy Solid Yarns, one in Dark Grey Heather, one in Silver Heather, and a little bit of mystery yellow acrylic (possibly Red Hear) in a contrasting yellow
  • Other:  Some matching thread, some coordinating felt (acylic), and the much important polyfill
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For something that didn’t exist before, I think I did pretty good.  Granted the pattern I  had to make up isn’t the most difficult of things to make.  In fact I’d say cylindrical and conical shapes are much more mindless than a square when it comes to crochet.  You don’t have to worry about turning and making sure your tension is spot on for a perfect rectangle/square.  Warning though, if you’re just starting, do your rectangles/squares, although not a noticeable, you can screw up mindless tasks really easily.
So, if you look at pictures of actual JDAM’s you’ll notice the curves from the nose to the body to the tail are much more gradual then what I actually did.  I wanted to make it more accurate, but my brother wanted it with much more pronounced points.
For the most part, the whole softie was pretty easy to make, cone, cylinder, cone, easy right?  Well yes, but the felt “sleeves” (which are removable) or whatever they’re called (anyone?) were a pain to make.  Lots of hand stitching (too small for the machine) and lots of little holes to cut out for my crappy little embroidery scissors.
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Out of the whole ordeal, I learned a couple things:
  1. Acrylic is killer on my sensitive little fingertips
  2. Burt’s Bee’s Hand Salve is a Gift of the God’s and possibly made from unicorn tears; it’s that heavenly
  3. Going off on my own and making something up on the fly isn’t as terrifying as I initially make it out to be
  4. I did pretty good, if I do say so myself
  5. I need new embroidery scissors…